Much more so than facial cleansers, body washes and bath products often contain high amounts of soap, sulfates or synthetic perfume which rules a lot of them out for my dry sensitive. I think many have an aversion to body washes that don't foam or aren't scented - behold the power of advertising! People expect a bubbly and perfumed experience to feel clean and this makes it easy for brands to use cheap ingredients that aren't necessarily good for you. The sorts of ingredients that make my skin dry and can irritate sore patches.

For dry skin, a good body wash should clean without stripping away natural oils which is why I have continuously used Dermol 500 as my body wash for decades. It is a white lotion cleanser that is ever so gentle on the skin being a simple, sulfate and fragrance-free formula. It is non-drying thanks to the inclusion of emollient liquid paraffin and isopropyl myristate. And it is an effective cleanser as benzalkonium chloride and chlorhexidine hydrochloride make it antimicrobial. This is particularly important for those with a compromised skin barrier as you are helping to get rid of bacteria from your skin that could aggravate your condition.

If you suffer from dry hands, think about using Dermol 500 at the sink too, the perfect product to sanitize your hands without exacerbating the cracked skin between your fingers or drying out rough palms.

For a pharmaceutical product, the packaging is not half bad. A clean shade of green and the matte finish makes the 500ml pump bottle look quite nice on the bathroom shelf. You can get the same formula in a handy 200ml squeezy tube with a shower hook (Dermol 200) and a 600ml cream bath (Dermol 600). They are all fail-safe cleansing products for dry/compromised skin and you can buy it yourself online or you can ask for it on prescription.

Even if you don't feel Dermol is for you, I still recommend you review what you are using in the shower. In these wintry months the instant reaction is to pile on the moisturiser to compensate for the moisture lost to the outdoor cold and indoor heating. But it will do you good to pay a bit of attention to whether your body wash is, or isn't, helping your skin.